Poll: Half approve of NSA program

The debate over the NSA program hit the House floor Wednesday. | AP Photo

By JAMES ARKIN | 7/26/13 1:02 PM EDT

Most Americans are suspicious they aren’t being told the full truth about the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, but half still approve of the program overall, according to a new poll released Friday.

Fifty percent of Americans approve of the NSA program while 44 percent disapprove, according to the poll from the PEW Research Center.

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Despite the overall approval, 70 percent of those surveyed said they thought the government uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism. Similarly, 63 percent of those surveyed said they believed the government was collecting information about content of communications, not just metadata. Of that group, 27 percent said they thought the government had listened to their calls or read their emails, while 28 percent did not.

Of the respondents who believed the government was collecting data beyond terrorism, 19 percent thought the data was being used to spy or “be nosy.” More than one in ten, 13 percent, thought the government had a political agenda.

The debate over the NSA program hit the House floor Wednesday when a vote on an amendment to curb the collection of phone data was narrowly defeated.

The poll surveyed 1,480 adults from July 17-21 with a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.